Fan Mail

Yo, check this out! It's my first ever piece of fan mail! At the moment www.tax-hell.co.uk and the blog are listed on Google and emails are sent are sent out to HMRC, but obviously I have much bigger plans for the site: I want it to become a campaigning tool for change and also a resource for people being investigated. The Revolution Will Be Blogged! Anyway - before I get too far up myself - here is the mail. 

Hi Nick

Well done for fighting back & constructing such an excellent site.

We at Tax Credit Casualties have also discovered that HMRC lie through their teeth and are as incompetent as they are unaccountable!

Please feel free to visit us here http://familytaxcredit.forumco.com/default.asp and at our main site here http://www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

if you haven’t already done so.

Kind Regards

Alan

Lamper Gets her Cage Rattled

I got a letter from Jacqui Lamper (dated 18 Feb 08) that starts, "I note from your email to Mr F Chapman, 13 February 2008, that you are unable to locate the discovery assessment documents for January 2007." 

Ah-ha! This means that Fred Chapman has kept his word and started to investigate the issue of discovery in this case (see blog of  13 February 2008). Who would have thought! I had believed that the HMRC complaints team offered little more than a flack-catcher service, but he now appears to be keeping his word and stepping up to the bar. 

Jacqui Lamper goes on, "I enclose a further copy of the assessment notice... and your appeal.. My explanation of the assessment was given on pages 7 and 8 of my letter 10 January 2007, copy also enclosed."

This all sounds very official and all above board. There is nothing like a letter headed with the HMRC logo to make the heart beat a little faster. 

But here's the rub: Jacqui Lamper needed to make a discovery to issue a notice of Further Assessment for 2000-01 - and there is no mention of discovery in any of these pages. More than that when I used the Data Protection Act to get hold of HMRC documents there was no mention of discovery in them either. 

From the beginning of 2007 the whole issue of discovery became heated with Jacqui Lamper saying - time after time - that a discovery had been made - though she was never really very clear what that discovery was: see here.

Because I'm not a trained accountant I was asking the wrong questions for quite some time but eventually I hit on the right one: I asked for the date Jacqui Lamper  raised the discovery assessment documents. Jacqui Lamper replied, "I authorised discovery assment documents to be raised and I signed the resulting notices on 6 September 2007".

This means that there was a gap of seven months between using the discovery powers and filling out the pertinent paperwork. Now in the past HMRC have told me that a "little knowledge is a dangerous thing" [SIC] and I do understand what they are saying - I'm no accountant - but this yawning gap of time between using DA powers and doing the appropriate paperwork combined with an inability to say - exactly - what the discovery was - smells very rat-like to me. 

Will Fred and the complaints team investigate this further? I've got a handful of emails from him to Jacqui Lamper (god bless you Data Protection Act) which shows they are on friendly terms - and let's not forget they are colleagues. But Fred Chapman has given me his word that if there has been wrongdoing he will seek it out and hold up HMRC's hand to that wrongdoing - Mr Chapman, I hold you to your word. 

Song for Karen

I’ve had two long telephone conversations with Karen Culliford (karen.Culliford@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk - 02392 285000) who is PA to Local Compliance Director Carol Mellor (carol.mellor@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk).

Needless to say Karen doesn’t live to take part in long conversations about tax cases that have gone horribly wrong. She insisted that Carol Mellor - despite being the Local Compliance Director - has no power in this case.

I asked to speak with Carol and was told that she would be out of the office for weeks - then I asked for Carol’s mobile number - we both laughed about that! (Silently of course).

But that then - seriously - raises the question about who is making the decisions. Who - just before Christmas - said, OK if this joker wants to appeal lets more than double his tax liability for no reason at all, let’s just rework the figures! Oh and while we’re at it let’s change the reasons for “Discovery” because frankly what Jacqui Lamper (01273 430011) has come up with is as strong as a wet paper bag carrying a lead balloon (see schedule point 31 and discovery).

I will write to Karen today and asked her to take a good look at the website - particularly the schedule with a view to closing the case down and mounting an internal investigation into what has gone so terribly wrong with this investigation.

You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill

I got a letter today form Medium Interventions Team Leader Tim Lintott that made me groan from the bottom of my soul. It’s dated 13 February 2008.

He starts by reminding me that he doesn’t have external email! Come on Tim, we are well into the 21st century now, look HMRC plough millions of tax pounds into promoting online tax returns, the least you can do is start using email.

Anyway, he then goes on, “I am able to make your suggested meeting on 25 February at 3.00pm… [I] shall attend along with Mr Button from this office at the suggested time.”

Now, in the email I sent Tim (via his boss Carol Mellor - who has email - carol.mellor@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk) I said “I I'm trusting that as you are a supervisor you will not feel the need to be accompanied by a second Inspector.” There are two very good reasons for this: they are both previous meetings I’ve had with HMRC, it’s always two against one - why do they need two inspectors? I’m unrepresented, untrained and know little about HMRC’s rules - do I really pose such a huge threat?

Tim goes on, “My expectation is that we shall establish finally whether the hearing is to be made before the General or Special Commissioners.” This has already been discussed in detail (a lengthy telephone call of 10 Jan 2008) and Tim knows my plans. I want to challenge the validity of HMRC’s second set of figures (see schedule) with the General Commissioners and then take the whole case to the Special Commissioners. Tim, himself, agreed to this in the phone call.

Tim goes on, “… we can also discuss in broad terms the contents of the Statement of Agreed Facts. I should point out that I will not be personally drawing up this statement although I shall be actively advising those who will.”

Now this is the deeply depressing bit - what Tim is saying is he has no power or authority in this matter. In the words of Kurtz “You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.” [there is a small prize for the first person to name the film.]

Sigh, anyway, so what Tim seems to be saying is he’s bringing a friend with him and no matter what happens or what I say nothing will really change. The idea that he will be “actively advising” his superiors is ludicrous - I mean I can “actively advise” HMRC boss Dave Hartnett (dave.hartnett@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk) about how to run a better tax system, it’s meaningless.

Tim goes on to say, “… we will be aiming to bring our own recording equipment.” Even here Tim doesn’t seem able to say he definitely will - and he even seems unwilling to commit to a specific type of recording device.

Oh, on a tangent I’d like to take this moment to “actively advise” Dave Hartnett to tape all interviews, the police do it and HMRC interviews are certainly no less adversarial: tape everything, then there are no disputes later about what has been said.

But back to the letter, the whole thing is ridiculous: here we have somebody with no external email and no power who doesn’t want to venture out on his own and might (or might not) bring “recording equipment” with him.

Who is making the decisions in this case, who is Tim fronting for? Let’s cut to the chase.

Open letter to fred.chapman@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk about discovery

Dear Mr F Chapman

I've just been through all the paperwork for this case.

At no point has the issue of discovery or discovery powers dealt with by the complaints team, or indeed any member of HMRC other than J Lamper.

J Lamper used discovery assessment powers in my case in January 2007 but didn't raise discovery assessment documents for at least seven months after that date. A letter sent in late December 2007 reassesses the whole case and J Lamper's reasons for discovery - elusive as they were - now seem to to have been completely removed.

That must put questions in your mind about how legitimate the January 2007 discovery was.

When we spoke on the phone and you promised me that if you became aware of wrong-doing you would hold your hands up to it immediately. I now hold you to that promise.

You can hear J Lamper talking about discovery here: http://web.mac.com/nickmorgan/iWeb/HMRC/discovery.html

An updated schedule of events is here: http://web.mac.com/nickmorgan/iWeb/HMRC/schedule.html

A new blog is here: http://nick-wwwtax-hellcouk.blogspot.com/

And the main site is here: http://www.tax-hell.co.uk

Sincerely

Nick Morgan

PS In the past you have told me the correct course for me to now take is to go to the Adjudicator. However, they have said that while this case is active they will not even look at it.

--


Nick Morgan

The Site www.tax-hell.co.uk

The Blog http://nick-wwwtax-hellcouk.blogspot.com/

The Schedule http://web.mac.com/nickmorgan/iWeb/HMRC/schedule.html

The Cost of Investigation

I do wonder what my case is costing the tax payer - now jokingly known by HMRC as "The Customer".

At the very most HMRC think that they will get about 6k plus interest and penalties - though this figure is currently changing from month to month (see http://web.mac.com/nickmorgan/iWeb/HMRC/schedule.html and weep).

This - rather fanciful figure - is a chunk of cash, but at the same time this case has been going on for almost three years and there is a pile of paperwork three house bricks deep.

I've enquired how much it would cost me to be represented before the Special Commissioners and was given a ballpark figure of 5K. Now as HMRC are using barrister level representation I don't see that their costs will be dramatically different.

I've asked the HMRC supervisors about cost / benefit yields and isn't my case a waste of tax payers cash? And I've always got the same answer, something about, "it's not about money, it's about ensuring the integrity of the system." But of course it IS about cash so I used the Freedom of Information act to find out how much my case was costing you. They replied that they didn't keep cost tabs on individual files - which (I'm sure) is true.

I think this investigation will end up costing in the region of 100k - which is just phenomenal.

HMRC reports suggest that there is a ratio of 2:1 in small businesses Self Assessment investigations that's (two pounds returned for every one spent) and at first this looks good. But it is actually the smallest return in any area of HMRC investigations. If you look at non-business self assessment enquiries the ratio jumps to more than 15:1.

The assumption seems to be that most small businesses are on the fiddle but the figures suggest that this is not the case. So why focus resources on the low yield small businesses when they show - year after year - that they are not the big offenders?

Also see: http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=178896